A 17-year-old boy who stole bathroom fittings on Thursday, received a one-year suspended sentence.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that a suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge’s delaying of a defendant’s serving of a sentence after he/she may have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation.
NAN reports that if the defendant does not break the law during that period, and fulfils the particular conditions of the probation, the judge usually dismisses the sentence.
Delivering judgment, Magistrate Aliyu Shafa, sentenced the minor after he pleaded guilty to house breaking and theft and begged the court for leniency.
Shafa ordered Audu to sign an undertaking to be of good behaviour in the next one year and desist from committing crime.
He cited section 460 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) to buttress his judgment.
“I am granting him a suspended sentence because he is underage but will sign an understanding to be of good behaviour in the next one year”, he said.
Earlier, the prosecution counsel, Abdulahi Tanko, told the court that the complainant, Nachrist Onyedikachi, reported the matter at Iddo Police Station on Jan. 21.
Tanko said that the teenager broke into the complainant’s house and stole 11 toilet seats, 10 washing hand basins and some showers all worth N500,000.
He said that during investigation the defendant confessed to the crime and some of the items was recovered from him.
The offence, he said, contravened the provisions of sections 346 and 287 of the Penal Code Law.
